THE NEW MASCOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 104, 4 May 1936, Page 12

THE NEW MASCOT.

BETTER AERODROME.

AIDS TO NIGHT FLYING.

AMERICAN PLAN FOLLOWED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 28. After long delays the Government is now preparing to improve Mascot aerodrome and to bring it into line with other great airports in the matter, of aerial equipment. Ib is to be doubled in size, one section being used for landing, the other for taking oil'. A control tower is to be erected, additional hangars will be provided, and—chietly through the enterprise of Amalgamated Wireless—a radio-beam is to be put into operation, which will make night flying to Sydney both safe and certain.

The wireless beacon, which is located about half a mile from Mascot, is one of the most interesting and valuable pieces of aerial equipment yet installed in Australia. At present, if a machine wishes to land at Mascot after *> p.m., it must give formal notice of its intention, for otherwise the caretaker with his flaues may not be there to guide it. So far Mascot, the principal aerodrome of Australia, lias had 110 one officially, on duty to receive callers after 5 o'clock, in the evening. The radio-beam, however, will change all tliat. Such beacons throw out beams like a marine lighthouse, but with a succession of electric "dots and dashes" revealing to the aviator his precise location.

The Mascot beacon will radiato four beams with a range of from 100 to 200 miles. One beam radiates north-west toward Dubbo, a second south-west toward Canberra and Melbourne, a third north-east toward Newcastle and Brisbane, and a fourth south-east in the general direction of New Zealand. Along the true course which leads straight to the aerodrome the aviator will receive a succession of "dash" signals. If ho is to the right of his true course he receives only "dot dash" signals, whereas if he is to the left of his proper course the signals are all "dash dot" in rapid succession. These variations enable him to diverge from• his line of flight into the true course as soon as he comes within the range of the beams, and to navfgate accordingly.

This system has been in vogue for some years in America, where the installation of beacons and beams have made the American airways "safer than the railways." An American pilot said recently that he would rather fly from New York to Los Angeles in the dirtiest weather by night than fly from Sydney to Melbourne by day. There may be some slight exaggeration in this, but it indicates how far Australia has so far lagged behind recent developments in aeronautic The experts tell us that, with an intermediate beacon at Cootamuiulra, and another in Melbourne, the flight between the two great cities could be made absolutely safe by nif7lit or day, but this should be only a first step toward providing the whole of the continent at all important air stations with beacons and beams.